With higher elevations throughout the Rockies already seeing flakes, you might be wondering how early in the fall it can actually snow in your hometown.
Many factors determine when a given location will see its first snow of the season, including that city’s elevation and latitude and the general weather pattern in place across the U.S.
In some areas, it has snowed as early as September or even the latter half of August, but other places have never seen flakes fly until November.
FOX Weather Senior Weather Data Specialist Shane Brown compiled the map below to show when various U.S. cities have documented their earliest first measurable snowfall on record.
Measurable snow is defined as an accumulation of at least 0.1 inches, so if the season’s first snowflakes don’t stick to the ground, it’s not considered the official first snowfall in the weather records.
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Several towns from the Rockies to the northern Plains, Upper Midwest, northern Great Lakes and northern New England have recorded measurable snowfall as early as September.
Denver (Sept. 3, 1961), Rapid City, South Dakota (Sept. 13, 1970), and Minneapolis-St. Paul (Sept. 24, 1985) have measured at least 0.1 inches of snow during the first month of meteorological fall.
Great Falls, Montana, has even received measurable snow in late August. Between Aug. 22-23, 1992, 8.3 inches of snow piled up in this northern Montana city in what the National Weather Service called “an unprecedented weather event” because it was the only time snow had ever been measured there in August in records dating to 1886.
Many cities across the nation have reported measurable amounts of snow in October, including large portions of the Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast.
Oct. 12 is the earliest Chicago and Detroit have ever had measurable snow, which happened during the same weather system in 2006.
Several major cities along Interstate 95 also saw their earliest 0.1-inch or greater snowfall from a single weather system on Oct. 10, 1979, including Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.
New York City, however, avoided measurable snow from that system, so its record-earliest snowfall actually occurred way back on Oct. 15, 1876.
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Seattle’s earliest first measurable snow was also in October. It once snowed in the Emerald City four days before Halloween on Oct. 27, 1971.
The South has to wait until at least November to receive its first snow because temperatures are typically too warm in September and October.
The earliest reported measurable snowfall in Dallas-Fort Worth and Memphis, Tennessee, was on Nov. 2, 1951, from the same weather system.
Two years later, Raleigh, North Carolina, had its earliest snowfall of at least 0.1 inches on Nov. 6, 1953.
Atlanta once received measurable snow as early as Nov. 11, 1968, while the South Carolina capital city of Columbia saw a 3.3-inch snowstorm on Nov. 19, 1901, which still stands as its earliest snowfall on record.
And surprisingly, even Las Vegas has a couple of instances of snow in November, with its earliest being a 4-inch snowstorm between Nov. 15-16, 1964.
It’s important to keep in mind that the dates discussed above are the earliest it has ever snowed, not when the first snow typically occurs each year.
To determine when the season’s first snowfall is more likely to happen, you’ll want to consider the average date of the first measurable snow.
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The Rockies, northern Plains and northern Great Lakes are typically the first regions to see snow each year, with the first measurable snowfall in many locations occurring in October during an average season.
November or December is usually when most places in the Midwest and Northeast can expect accumulating snow for the first time, while it might take until January or February to see the first snow in the South, though some Southern cities don’t receive measurable snow every year.